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Edward Sturgis (1613-1695)
}} Biography Edward Sturgis I was an English immigrant who settled in first Yarmouth and later of Barnstable, Massachusetts. English Ancestry According to the generally accepted Sturgis genealogy: the Sturgis family are supposed to be descended from Roger Sturgis of Clipston, presumably the Roger Sturge of the Phillamore list, whose will was dated November 15, 1530. He married Alice and had Richard, Robert, Francis, Ellen and Agnes. Richard Sturgis had Roger Sturgis, John Sturgis and Thomas Sturgis. Roger Sturgis married Agnes and had Robert Sturgis of Faxton and John Sturgis. Robert Sturgis of Faxton (comp. Phillimore list) left a will, dated April 9, 1610, proved September 19, 1611, the deceased being buried at Faxton, January 2, 1611. He had a son Philip Sturgis of Hannington, whose will was dated May 26, 1618 (comp. Phillimore list), proved July 2, 1618, the deceased being buried at Hannington, June 18, 1618. Philip Sturgis by a first wife had Edward Sturgis, Robert Sturgis and Elizabeth Sturgis and by a second wife, Anne Lewes, Alice, baptized January 16, 1608; Anne, baptized September 29, 1609; and William, batpized October 10, 1611. Edward Sturgis, the son of Philip, married Alice and had Alice, baptized December 23, 1619; Mary, baptized October 2, 1621; Edward, baptized April 10, 1624, who according to the tale went to New England with his father; Rebecca, baptized February 17, 1626; and, as the tree reads, ?other children born in this country?. A copy of this tree is on file in the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Even if we assume that there was an Edward, son of Philip, who married Alice and that the line of the family down to that Edward is correct, it is impossible to maintain the proposition that the Edward Sturgis who came to this country and first appears in New England in 1634 at Charlestown, Massachusetts, was that Edward. "It is well known that many of those families settling on Cape Cod in the second quarter of the seventeenth century came from Kent and a partial examination of the records of East Kent reveals a possible source from which our Edward Sturgis sprang. It appears in the Worth Transcripts that ?John Sturgis the son of Edward Sturgis was crystned the XXVIjth of Aprill, 1578.? Assuming that this John was the eldest son, Edward Sturges was born probably about 1557. He is called ?Edward Sturges alias Turges? in the marriage license of his daughter Elizabeth (supra). From 1581 to 1595 he appears in the registers of Woodnesborough and from 1596 to 1622 in those of Tilmanstone. In the license for his last marriage he is called of Eastry (Canterbury Marriage Licenses, April 17, 1623 ) but later in that year he removed to Sturry where he was buried January 23, 1624/5. His will, dated January 13, 1623/4 mentions lands in Barham and was proved February 9, 1624/5 (Arch. Cant., vol. 67, fol.380). Woodnesborough, Tilmanstone and Eastry are adjoining parishes about ten miles east of Canterbury, while Sturry is two miles north of it. In his will Edward Sturges described himself as ?the elder of Sturry, co. Kent, yeoman? and left to his son John one shilling and to Edward Sturges, son of John, forty shillings when 18 years old. The name of John Sturges appears at various times in the registers of Tilmanstone, Woodnesborough and Eastry. 1634 Migration to New England The Edward Sturgis who came to Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1634, where on January 10, 1634-5 he received a grant of four acres of land (Charlestown land records in New England Register, Vol. 20, page 110), lived a long life and appears frequently in the Records of the Plymouth Colony, dying in Sandwich, Massachusets, in 1695. If his son Edward, his third child, born in 1624, according to the tree, came with his father to this country, the senior Sturgis lived to be at least one hundred years old and moreover, the wife of Edward Sturgis in America was named Elizabeth and not Alice. Moreover it is clear from the Province records that Edward Sturgis did not return to England and yet we find in All Saint?s Church at Holdenbury a tablet to the memory of Alice Sturgis, wife of Edward Sturgis, who died January 20, 1659; and Edward Sturgis, her husband, of West Haddon, who died October 22, 1670 (Baker?s History of the County of Northhampton). The will of Philip Sturgis devised lands in West Haddon to his son Edward. There can be no doubt that this Edward to whom the tablet was erected was the son of Philip and not the Edward Sturgis who came to Charlestown in 1634." 1639 Yarmouth Settlement Marriage and Family 1st Marriage : Margaret Austin He married first, by license, at Tilmanstone, November 28, 1608, Margaret Austin (Tilmanstone Register). She was buried at Eastry, April 3, 1622 (Eastry Transcripts). Of this marriage there were four children: - 1. Margaret, baptised at Tilmanstone June 3, 1610, who probably died young. 2) Edward, baptized at Woodnesborough, January 30, 1613/14 (wqoodnesborough Transcripts). . . . 3) Elizabeth, baptized at Woodnesborough, May 10, 1618. 4. Andrew, baptized at Eastry, March 31, 1622. The examination of the records in East Kent disclosed but two later mentions of the name Edward Sturges and neither seems to apply to this Edward Sturges, son of John. If he was the Edward Sturges who emigrated to America, as seems probably, he would have been 21 years old when he received his grant of land in Charlestown (supra)." "The family of Mr. Sturges is believed to have been a distinguished one in England, from whence Edward, of this town, came somewhere about the year 1634, when he was in Charlestown, and was in Yarmouth in 1641, in which year he was a Constable. He also served four years as Deputy to the Colony Court, and also on various committees of the town. He kept an ordinary, at which large quantities of liquors were sold, the accounts of which, officially published, throw much light on the drinking habits of our ancestors. His residence was not far from the old meeting-house. It was said that he had more plate in his house than all the rest of Yarmouth. He died in Sandwich, in 1695, leaving an estate appraised at £963. For so prominent a family as his, the account of Mr. Sturges?s descendants is unusually obscure and unsatisfactory. His sons, it is believed were, Thomas and Samuel. Among his descendants are the late President Quincy of Harvard college, John Quincy Adams, and other distinguished personages." 2nd Marriage: Elizabeth Hinckley References * Samuel Hinckley (1589-1662)/List of Famous Descendants - Notable Descendants & Ancestry Category: Migrants from England to Massachusetts